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With the last Football Manager, I had three long saves that I spent most of my time (individually) with all year. I managed to complete the dafuge challenge with Dartford and play on for a good number of seasons. I then attempted Gundo's European Adventure Challenge with a unknown side Newington Y.C. and was making steady progress towards completing the final task when the save crashed. I wasn't going to give up easily so I reloaded and found myself at Ballycastle United - here I made the same progress (although not as much as the previous save) but by the time I had reached around 2018 I had lost interest for one reason or the other. I personally think I just starting thinking more and more about FM11 and the great new addition of DLR.

So on one hand I'm dying to finally get a club from my home country, N.Ireland, into the Champions League and become a real massive franchise. However I also wish to maybe, have some sort of a journeyman career.

I called it like this: I'll load all of the home nations and I will begin in N.Ireland. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be - either way. O and the only reason I haven't loaded the nations outside the UK & Ireland was because I legitimately don't believe I actually would myself even if I was a good manager in reality.

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And so I tried to think about if there was any club at all, or area of this country that I wanted to give some attention to. An area maybe that I love and therefore would put effort into their club moving to the next level. I had good think about it and I remember me and the other half love visiting Newcastle in Co.Down:

And so I decided I would like to attempt to turn around the fortunes of Newcastle FC. The only issue I had was when contemplating how to get the pyramid enabled so I could work up from Newcastle's current position, I quickly remembered that we don't have a pyramid scheme outside the first three leagues (the playable leagues in FM) in reality.

So to make things easier somewhat and for simply less hassle, I opened the editor for the first and only time with FM11 and swapped some random club in the Championship 2 with Newcastle FC.

O and just to give you the general gist of it: They're dreadful. - one or two players, no staff, some money (no debt thank god) and a tiny pitch where they attempt to play the beautiful game.

Season Summary:
Long story short, I brought in a lot of players. Too many than I needed but I probably had a mild panic attack at the beginning of the season when we literally had nobody at the club. After making my tactic for the players, I continued to slightly tweak it throughout the season with both positive and negative results.

We had a good season both in the league and in also, we put in great performances against higher league opposition in the cups. The main reason for that was our strikers at times looked like they could beat any defence in the country. However on the flip side, a lot of my back-line did not do their jobs that well for most of the season and we found ourselves involved in many a 3-3 or 2-2 draw simply because we couldn't retain a lead. I also never once felt comfortable with any of the three goalkeepers I had at my disposal - all of them clearly had been spoofing about their best position after I saw all three regularly failing to catch simple balls from the air.

We sat on top of the league at Christmas and continued playing well (unbeaten in 12 at one point) until we lost a few, which in turn, became something like 6 on the bounce without a win. We slipped to 2nd place and stayed there for the rest of the season. The only reason why we stayed there was due to my strikers saving us a few times to pull out a leveller and the fact the teams below me, must not have really fancied promotion because they ended up in worse form than ourselves!

Not sure we'll be able to repeat these crazy antics next season. I would be happy to stay up and build up to a promotion within three years. That said, you sometimes can get lucky with the odd player coming in on a free, so you never can tell. I think some of our strikers will be fine at this level however. I need some better wingers and that's primarily where my targets will be in the transfer window.

Season Summary:
After last seasons heroics I was definitely not expecting a repeat performance. However we did well for the majority of the season. In the league - not the cups (we hate cups now - didn't you get the memo?)
The majority of the transfers in, didn't work out. I'll hold my hands up and say I trusted my AssMan a bit too much at times with his reckoning of how good a player was before signing him. We did have however the free transfer of the season and he went on to collect the top goalscorer gong for the league.
As for the performances, there was some excellent showings and then some not-so. I have to be careful however because given our expectations for the season, the inconsistency should be something to expect. In the end we had bounced between 1st spot to 6th, to 7th and then crawled back up until the final day when a great last-minute winner away from home was still not enough to snatch the 2nd spot. A good/great season with a bitter taste left in the mouth.

Michael Husbands - Banged in 20+ goals and that's all I can ask for from a striker. Picked up the top goalscorer award too.
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A good number of players will move on. Don't get me wrong, they did okay but they aren't going to take us beyond this league any time soon. I need a goalkeeper, desperately. In fact I need two coaches, a physio and a couple of scouts too. I need more money.

Season Summary:
Last season was very positive despite how it finished in the end and we looked to try and at least do as well if not better this year. The start of the season saw us pretty inconsistent and lacking goals. When we did score it was spectacular and when we conceded it was a comedy festival performance from my goalkeeper and back four.
So back to the drawing board I went and reconstructed our tactics a good deal - this got things moving in the right direction. The issue with our defence never really rectified despite having (according to my AssMan anyway) at least two or three solid, leading defenders for this level. But we were scoring goals and the majority of the time if we scored, we scored three or four - which helps.
The cup competitions on the whole did not go amazingly but we managed to reach the semi-final of the Steel Cup, only to lose to Linfield's reserves and we managed to have a decent run in the Irish Cup until we met Portadown (first of four encounters.) We forced the Premiership side to a replay and did well before crashing out.
Back in the league we were doing quite well I thought but kinda out of nowhere Loughgall began to storm their fixtures list. Literally smashing everything in front of them.
In the end our consistency just wasn't at the same level. Part of the reason for this was general discontent in the Newcastle FC camp. I had fined a few players for taking the **** during a few matches and at one point they all went bananas over me daring to punish a player for being rated a 4.5! And so various chats opened and in the end the majority of key players in the side told me, rather frankly, they would be leaving at the first opportunity. So as you will see next season with the transfers - many will be shipping out.
Regardless of that however, and rather surprisingly, we did keep scoring at least and in the end had to settle for scraping the 2nd spot. Which meant a play-off decider against our Premiership equivalents - Portadown.
The match-up itself as you can imagine given the media's outlook for our season was billed as David Vs Goliath. And we ain't Goliath. The first match probably should have sealed our fate and Portadown only have themselves to blame for not scoring more. In the end we pulled a goal back - a morale boosting goal back. It finished 2-1 to them with the return leg at our gaff. Now Simon Gribben isn't one of my players of the season. He will be moving on this summer on a pre-organised move and he generally has been in my ass ever since the end of the first season I joined this club. However, he gave me and the club and pretty solid going away present and scored both goals that would take us into the Premiership.

Season Summary:
This season was bizarre. A complete mess that turned out rather good in the end. For 75% of the season we were completely outclassed in most matches. No matter if we dominated possession or defended well - we always couldn't score and let the odd goal in. It was tediously boring and depressing to watch.
I brought in far, far too many players - and subsequently many of them left within the same season after I realised half of them were pish or at best, prospects for the future (potential for 3-5 years from now is no good in a relegation battle!)

In the league we literally sat bottom, without any hope for 30 odd games of the season. In the cups, we were doing ok and working our way through the stages mostly.
Then suddenly, for whatever reason (I was tweaking tactics all season so I can't be sure if it was me or not), we began to win matches. Then we won some more matches. We ended up one of the best form sides in the division. We finished the season away to Linfield, needing a draw to guarantee we would not have to face the relegation play-off; we spanked them 5-1. I would advise most people to check the league position graph to understand what I'm talking about - I'm delighted but rather bemused.
In terms of the cups: we went out of the Antrim Shield at the semi-final stage and we managed to reach the League Cup final but went down to 10 men after one of my midfielder's nearly snapped some poor lad in half - we went down 1-0 in the end. Drug testing found no use of anabolic steroids in the player sent off - although I have my doubts.

But the best story of the season (and again, this coming after our miraculous turnaround in the league was the complete icing on the cake), we had made the final of Irish FA Cup and faced a side Donegal Celtic from the league below. Our two strikers on the day wrapped up the win and now little Newcastle, the "Seasiders" will have a crack at the Europa League qualifiers!

Can't be as bad as last season, in terms of the start, middle and near finish we had in the league. Will be fun trying the Europa League. Need some cash into the club desperately as I can't get a youth facility built and can't even relay our pitch currently. Only way is up I'm afraid.

Season Summary:
Unremarkable season really. Positive in that we avoided relegation again and look to have established the club as one of the better ones in the country. Negative in that our performances were very inconsistent.

We had a crack at the qualifying round of the Europa League - we did okay, but went out accordingly. We picked up the Co.Antrim Shield early on in the season and looked to be heading for a good season from there. We had good results throughout the season but after these, we always had a shock home loss or through away a 3-0 lead away to some team. Obviously I have work to do for next season in that regard.

We made it to the semi-final of the League Cup but went out on penalties, which was acceptable. What wasn't acceptable was going out at the first hurdle, as holders, in the Irish Cup, to a side from the league below! Dreadful away performance and set the tone for the rest of the season at that point.

I ****ed off a number of players with disciplinary measures, some of which will leave this summer. I actually like this part of the game somewhat. It lets me know, quite effectively, who thinks they're too big for their boots and I can get rid accordingly.

We also took part in the All-Ireland Cup but we failed to make an impact there unfortunately.

So in the end we finished 6th in the league. Not a bad season but nothing to write home about.

Alan McCormack - Still the best midfielder I've got. The best player I've got. Injured for some time during the season. Didn't help.
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Transfers-- 95% of these are 17-19 year olds who have potential to be leading stars of the division according to my scouts - they were put in the reserves and I will hopefully either make profit on them or get two or three into the first team next season. (just to put the ridiculous amount of transfers in, into some sort of context!)

Season Summary:
This season was quite odd. I didn't get the consistency I wanted really. We never looked like a stable performing side that could be depended on to either score or keep a clean sheet. But thankfully, in my good fortune (admitting with any hesitation), the rest of the teams in the division seemed to be having the kind of issues.
Apart from retaining the Antrim Shield our cup performances were completely dire and really embarrassing in the case of the Irish Cup which is just (like last season) unacceptable given we won the bloody competition two years ago, when in (first XI wise) a worse position than now.

But we did get a few wins and we began to pick up points. We made it to the summit and then towards the end we drifted off the top spot. Going into the final game of the season against leaders Linfield, we had to win (and hope the other side very close to the top didn't take full points.) The match was very close and in the end, a goal from a striker, who will be moving on without any doubt due to his incredibly disgusting attitude and level of inconsistency, was enough to give us the win. Him scoring made the win a bit of a slap in the face to myself somewhat. We got some luck and we ended up sitting on top by a point. And hey presto! Six years after I took over, we are Champions of N.Ireland!

End of season manager profile
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Next season:

Need to retain the title first and foremost. But we will get a big help financially if we can go against logic and actually beat some teams in the Champions League qualifiers. Linfield have just turned professional. We need to in the next few years if we are to begin matching the bigger sides in N.Ireland.

Season Summary:
It all started with a lot of excitement. Champions League qualifier to be played - we had dreams of putting out some obscure Romanian team full of grey players and hopefully bagging some money. We drew Celtic - thanks. We did well in the circumstances but it put a real negative spin on the season and things continued to be negative for much of season. Part of this was of course my fault and to be honest, this season wasn't my most dedicated one. Kind of flew through it and in the end, underperformed very much because of it - I'll know to simply leave the game be if I'm not in a situation to give it full attention.

Our performance in the cups wasn't good. That's as much as I can remember.

Our performance in the league wasn't great. We ended up in the bottom half of the league before the split.

Interestingly enough we only found ourselves 3 points from the total from last season, which won us the league. I did say last season that I assumed we had luck with how inconsistent the rest of the teams found themselves. I was right.

End of season manager profile
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Next season:

I will need to get things back to basics next season. Players out. Players in. The league is priority without question. Without a chance at Europe to make money - this is going to fizzle out pretty quickly.

Season Summary:
Last season we went from league champions to mid-table obscurity. No trophies, nothing. I hoped this was merely a blip. I was wrong. This season was even worse.

Our league form was terrible and literally looked like we might be relegated early on in the season due to the sheer lack of ability to win matches.

Eventually I got things sorted tactically and we started to play a lot more credible football and started picking up points where weeks before we would have thrown away easily. Our form began to pick up after Christmas quite impressively. We managed to begin winning matches on the bounce and the pressure (despite me telling the board we would win the league this season) was easing ever so slightly.

In terms of the cups. Well early on when we could easily identify ourselves as a bunch of lads playing in the park half-drunk, these were not particularly welcome extra-curricular activities. But for the Irish Cup, that pretty much coincided with our return to form and therefore we managed to make the final and gave us the chance of, despite being dreadful for most of the season, entering the Europa League qualifiers.

Our league form wasn't anything spectacular in the last few matches and we finished in the same spot as last season, only with less points.

And so we headed for Windsor Park, against Glentoran (the huge favourites) for the Irish Cup final. We got some luck and scored an early goal and then played on the counter-attack for the rest of the game. We held on and took home the Irish Cup for second time, pretty much saving my skin somewhat for two under-par seasons.

End of season manager profile
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Next season:

This season kind of made me realise that there's a chance I might not stay in Northern Ireland after all. I want to - but maybe it's not meant to be. I have two more seasons and then I've been at Newcastle 10 seasons. If at that stage I'm still sitting mid-table, I'm pretty certain I'll be hitting the job centre. The board actually gave me a huge extension on my contract post-season ironically enough despite clearly not delivering on my promises. If I'm to stay with this club, we need to win the league again within the next two seasons.

This season was more positive than last season. I said last time that this season and next will make it ten seasons at Newcastle and to be honest, I would have liked to be more dominant within Northern Ireland at this stage, which really hasn't happened. Therefore if I don't see the club moving forward by the end of season ten, I'll probably look to move elsewhere (maybe within N.Ireland even.)

But this season was better than the last. We started off by defying expectations in the Europa League and beat two big favourites in the early qualifiers before going down to Sporting CP. That run gave us hope for the season. We did well in the league but the only issue was conceding goals. We scored more than any other team in the league and it is was our right winger who picked up the player of the year. However we still couldn't pick up the title and it was rather frustrating the in end despite obviously being a step in the right direction.

The cup competitions didn't really matter to us this season and it showed with some of the results. I rotated quite a bit for these.

Next season will need to see us take a step forward and win the title for the second time in our history.

Bit late with the update so I'll make it short and sweet. Our form was a lot better this season and the goals from the strikers made us a dangerous outfit. Should have won everything we were involved with to be quite honest apart from the Europa League. One shouldn't be greedy but there's more to come from this team I feel.

We had finally reached the top of the food chain in Northern Ireland and now we had to keep up performances to retain the league and pop a couple more trophies into the cabinet. We didn't bring in many players compared to previous years but some key performers were among them. The seasons league performance was not only our best but the best Premiership points tally since I took over at the club. We should have done better too truth be told.

Apart from the League Cup - which I have no idea why we underperformed so badly in that, we wrapped up every other trophy bar the European adventures which was quite obviously never something to even contemplate.

A great season to follow on from the last and I feel at last like this club is moving towards a much more dominant future. (We EVEN have new training facilities on the way and ...wait for it...YOUTH FACILITIES!!!! )

End of season manager profile
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Next season:

Again, I want to win the league, the Irish Cup and the All-Ireland Cup above all else. Making progress in Europe (reaching a group stage) I don't feel is too far away any more and once we do reach the Champions League group stage, the money from that will really set us on our way.

Really enjoying this career now and I'm thoroughly delighted that I will now get to stay at the same club for the entire save.

Ended up reaching and unfortunately losing the Champions League play-off qualifier, for the first time since I started the save, this season and ended up in a Europa League group including Inter and Spurs.

Wasn't expecting much from our first game at home to Inter but I was rather surprised (although not as much as seeing Benitez still listed as manager) at how well we coped given the huge gulf in size of the clubs.

I was aiming for the League Title, the Irish Cup and the All-Ireland Cup and I felt confident we could achieve this. We began with the European campaign and for the first time we made the Champions Play-Off stage of the qualifiers, we lost out and thus, ended up in a Europa League group. This is a huge progression for this club and regardless of what was about to take place, anything better than this was purely a bonus.

In the league we weren't as solid as last season. I felt we lacked a bit of cutting edge at times to truly destroy some of the sides in the league. I experimented a bit with the formation at times, rightly or wrongly and we certainly didn't have much luck with injuries this season.

In terms of the rest, we picked up the Antrim Shield, got the final of the League Cup and (whether it was injuries or not) we got hammered by Crusaders (who at the time were really pushing us in the league.) The All-Ireland Cup was something I really wanted to pick up (as the financial prize is pretty good for our level) but in the quarter final we gave away the tie in the first leg at home and then despite a good performance away, we lost out on away goals.

We did however manage to pick up the Irish Cup again and ended the season on a high by taking the league title once again.

End of season manager profile
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Next season:

Well for the first time this close season, we have YOUTH PLAYERS - And yes, they are absolutely useless footballers! But they're OUR useless footballers!

And after asking the board on a whim they might give in - they did! Newcastle FC are now a professional outfit! - as you can see as well, another side have done the same. That now makes four sides in the top league are now professional. Which can only be a good thing.

Again next season, I just want to win the three big ones (at our level): the league, the Irish Cup and the All-Ireland Cup. Progression in Europe is obviously welcomed but I'm aware of the unlikely-hood we will do much better (if at all better) than last year.

O and I must mention, as much as it may seem like bragging, it's more slight confusion: I'm now (if you check out my latest manager profile) regarded as a World Class manager. How odd, considering the level I've been managing at.

Wow amazing season really. You think you can keep improving, particularly in Europe? I supposed slow and steady progress would be good enough!

What a goal to win against Inter!

Thanks GioGio85!

Well I expect we will. I haven't managed to make the CL group stage thus far and I think that is definitely achievable over the next few season. Even if it's just through a lucky draw with the qualifiers.

The money you receive (consider the level I'm playing) for reaching the CL group stage (something like £6million+) puts the club into real contention for moving forward. You do that season after season (simply making the group stage) eventually you should start to make progress.

I'm in it for the long-haul without any doubt. I have visions of still playing with this save when the next edition of FM is coming out in the Autumn.

This season wasn't that enjoyable near the end. Again last like last season we couldn't go beyond the CL qualifiers and ended up in a tough group with Sporting CP and Arsenal.

Our league form was the worst for three years and it spilled over into our cup form. We lost in the Antrim Shield final, we went out early in the League Cup and things weren't too positive.

We managed to reach the top in the league that keep things from being a mini-crisis but again we were in the middle of getting thumped in the Europa League which didn't feel too good.

We lost in the semi-final of the Irish Cup which was a real kick in the teeth against opposition who really should have been hammered by ourselves any season but this one. Same for the All-Ireland Cup in which we got hammered in the 2nd leg of the semi-final against Shamrock Rovers.

Hanging onto the top spot in the league stopped it being a complete regression but all in all, a forgettable season.

I might venture into the transfer market for the first time in years. It ends may justify the means in terms of us getting into the CL group stages. Signing some players with higher reputation might also go towards gaining a bigger fan-base as currently we still only sell out our tiny 600 seater stadium for big matches. I never had this problem in FM2010 I have to say. I had a new stadium being built at this stage, hah.

Congrats on getting to the group stage! Hopefully I can make it there as well someday in my current save, at Waterford United at the moment and it is proving difficult enough just to make it to the Premiership :P

I know man, it's a blessing for the ever increasing (although tiny compared to the big dogs) wage budget.

Originally Posted by Nobby_McDonald

Where do you play your European home games?

As much as it's meant to be a national stadium in real life, we play ours in our wee 600 seater stadium, ha!

Originally Posted by AndrewFM

Congrats on getting to the group stage! Hopefully I can make it there as well someday in my current save, at Waterford United at the moment and it is proving difficult enough just to make it to the Premiership :P

It's tough and there is several key points in the progession for clubs like this so I can sympathise. Incidently, Galway Utd have also made it into the CL group stage this year as well.

We've had a takeover now and a new chairman has taken over post-season. He's been nice enough to clear our small debt and has doubled our funds as well. Hopefully we can take advantage of this and get some better players in for the CL this season to make sure we can make the group stage again.